It began with a lay-up, although it was not your run-of-the-mill lay-up.

“It was a reverse lay-up,” Lexi Gussert said about the first basket of her high school career.

Gussert, 6-feet-1, is a senior at Crystal Falls Forest Park and clearly the best player in Michigan and the front-runner for the Miss Basketball Award.

Though she remembered the lay-up as a freshman against Powers-North Central, she did not recall she finished that game with six points. Nor did she remember she scored 17 against Bark River-Harris in her second game, and she didn’t make her first three-point shot until game No. 3, when she scored 19 against Carney-Nadeau.

All of that is relevant because no one — girl or boy — who has played high school basketball in the Upper Peninsula has scored more points than Gussert.

Gussert, who has signed with Michigan State, surpassed the 2,131 points scored by former Ewen-Trout Creek all-stater Allison Bailey, who finished her career in 1997.

“Actually, I didn’t know about the record until the game before,” Gussert said. “My parents always know, but they normally tell me the day of that I need so many points to break a record. I don’t like that because the team knows, too, and we try to force it a little bit.”

Bailey’s record wasn’t the only scoring record Gussert broke that night. Also falling was the record held by Negaunee’s Dominic Jacobetti Jr., who scored 2,140 points.

“When I was going out to warm up at halftime, Coach told me I needed to talk to the TV-6 lady, who did an interview with me,” Gussert said. “She said I needed nine points to break the boys’ record, too.”

Last week, Gussert found a school record to break when she hit 10 three-point shots, tied for fifth best in state history. Better than that, the record she broke (nine) was held by ... her brother, Andrew, 24, who helped her break the record.

“It was funny because the previous two games I wasn’t shooting very well from the outside, but I was finishing inside,” she said. “He actually took me in the gym last Sunday and rebounded for me for an hour and a half, and it really helped me out. Just to beat his record in the next few days was kind of ironic. But he was happy for me.”

Everyone in Crystal Falls, not to mention Forest Park, is happy for Gussert. Even though she is a little embarrassed about all of the attention she is getting, especially considering she would rather pass — Gussert is an amazing passer — than shoot.

“I’m just glad I’m able to thank everyone that has made this happen for me and to be able to leave a record at Forest Park and to be able to share it with everyone,” she said. “It seems like other people are a bit more happy than I am. It’s cool and everything, but I have bigger goals. I just really want to make it down to The Bres this year.”

Gussert desperately wants to take her teammates back to the Breslin Center, where she scored 34 points in a Class D semifinal loss two years ago as a sophomore.

If the Trojans get to the state finals, Gussert might make it impossible for any Yooper to ever break her record.

“The best record we could do,” she said, “is to win a state championship.”